NZCLIMATE & ENVIRO TRUTH NO 99
MAY 18TH 2006
KEVIN TRENBERTH AND EL
NIÑO
I spent the morning at
the US Embassy where they had a power point slide show on
Climate Change presented by Kevin Trembath from the telephone.
It was fairly
comprehensive, but it could be noted that in many of the
graphs. the supposed effects of greenhouse gases took place only
towards the end of the record, associated with the very large
temperture peak ("since records began") in 1998. I continue to wonder
why the greenhouse effect would take so long before it becomes
noticeable, and why an effect which seems generally to be attributed to
the El Niño ocean event is now recruited to support greenhouse
forcing.
I had a fairly lengthy
exchange with him on the subject, citing his paper (Trenberth et
al ) in J of Geophysical Research 2002 Vol 107. No D8,
10.1029/2000JD000298 AAC 5-1 to 5-19. (Incidentally, I hate this
overblown reference system which makes it almost impossible to find
anything)
This paper attempts
to evaluate the influence of the Southern Oscillation ( SOI or El
Niño) ocean phenomenon on the global surface temperature. The
SOI is calculated from the monthly or seasonal fluctuations in
the air pressure difference between Tahiti and Darwin. Sustained
negative values of this index often indicate El Niño episodes,
with a sustained warming of the central and eastern tropical Pacific
Ocean
In his paper,
Trenberth starts his Introduction by the following
"Following an El
Niño the global surface air temperature typically warms up by
perhaps 0.1ºC with a lag of `6 months" . In the paper
he finds that El Niño accounts for 0.06ºC of global
temperature increase between 1950-1998 with a time lag of
three months.
When he corrects the
surface temperature record for these El Niño effects he gets the
graph (Figure 3) which I attach.
You will note that the
corrected graph shows no overall temperture change whatsoever between
1950 and 1985, with a depressed period from 1964 to 1980 which is
called the great climate shift. Th 1950- 1985 period is
supposed to have had a large increase in greenhouse gases, but there
was no detectable evidence of this on the temperature record once
the effects of El Niño were removed. After 1985 there is an
upwards blob, that goes back down to zero in 1994. It seems difficult
to claim that this could have been due to a sudden, temporary influence
of greenhouse gases. After 1995 the temperature goes up to the large El
Niño in 1998 which obviously falls outside the scope of the
"linear trend" of the previous El Niños.
I took this up with
Trenberth but his answer was muddled. He seemed to think he was wrong
even to try to "correct" the surface record for El Niños because
it was really much more complicated. Also parhaps the El Niño
effect itself was caused by increases in greenhouse gases. Perhaps
volcanoes, sunspots and easrthquakes are caused by greenhouse
gases, too?
THE IPCC DRAFT
FOURTH WGI REPORT
I think I have
resolved what I am allowed to say about this report. The report has
been "released for review purposes" which means that even if anybody
can apply to "review" it, you still have to sign a pledge that
you will not cite or quote it. This does not seem to have stopped Mark
Henderson in the Wellington "Dominion Post" the "Guardian Weekly"
and several others from quoting freely, It is about time I said
something about it but I will be cautious.
Commenting on the
general report, eleven chapters and two "summaries" has taken me about
a month. Kevin Trenberth has already read my contribution to Chapter 3,
and he criticised me for suggesting amendments without saying why.
Well, you have a choice; either you suggest an amendment or you
write general comments. I figure they can ignore comments more easily
than amendments, because some of my amendments were for grammar or
inaccuracy, so they have to go through them.
I freely admit that I
don't like the words "anthropogenic, "climate chnage", "robust" "very
likely" and a number of others and they appear so often that you cannot
say why each time, though I made use of copy and paste
I think it was more one-sided than usual, and used far more
:"public relations" language which is usually absent from proper
scientific papers.
I have the impression
of interminable repetition. There is the Summary for Policymakers, the
Technical Report, the Summary at the beginning of each Chapter, the
Conclusion and then at the end of each Chapter a series of
"Questions" which summarise the summary. Answering the same allegation
over and over again was extremely tedious.
I continue to upbraid
them for frequently using only one standard deviation as a
measure of accuracy. They use the proper method , two standard
deviations. 95% confidence in some cxhapters but the lower confidence,
60% tends to be used where they want to mke the results look
better.
The message is less
strident than the last IPCC report. The attack made by McIntyre and
McKitrick on the "Hockey Stick" temperature presentation has had its
effects. M and M showed that the calculations of past tempertures had
mathematical errors. The IPCC won't admit this, of course,
but they do produce a modified "hockey stick" which is much less
persuasive,
Chapter One "The
Climate System: an Overview" has been abolished and replaced by a
Chapter called "A Historical Overview of Climate Change Science"".
This has been done in order to eliminate the embarassing
statement which appeared in "Climate Change 2001
"The fact that the
global mean temperture has increased since the late nineteenth centiry
and that other trends have been observed. does not necessartily mean
that an anthropogenic effect on the climate has been identified.
Climate has always varied on all time-scales, so the observe change may
be natural"
The new chapter is
largely yet another boost for themselves with even more tedious
repetition, and even includes a "historical" temperature record that
goes on to the year 2007.
their "projections"
for the year 2100 are also much less clear. They take the form of an
entire page of forty graphs showing the results of many climate factors
and the six scenartios using only one "simple" climate model instead of
five of them. . It makes it possible to reject a projecxtiont if you
find out that that particular scenario is ridiculous. Still they tend
to keep to the same temperture range for the year 2100. These graphs
are examples of using only one standard deviation to make them look
better.
The claimed identity
of all the current temperature records has been published by a NOAA
report, so it is hardly secret; but I have already mentioned it as
spurious. They print them on top of one another at small scale with a
"filter" which blurs the differences. When you compare them at the same
scale the lower atmosphere records show no warminng for long periods
when the surface shows a rise.They have suppressed the paper by
McKitrick and Michaels which shows the surface record is biased. I
tried to put it in.the last draft, but nothing doing.
They follow the
Framework Conventionon Climate Change in calling all climate influences
except greenhouse gases "climate varaibility". Only greenhouse gases
are allowed to be "Climate Change". They divide the other influences
into "internal climate variability" and "external climate variabil;ity"
In this way they manage to eliminate the El Niño ocean event
from an influence on the atmosphere, since it is an "internal cliamte
variability" They do not even include it in "natural" forcings when
trying to simulate past temperatures with their models.
It is truly amazing
how many people are working on models and how none of them has
ever succeeded in forecasting any future climate. They think that
"simulations, which involve adjustment of parameters to fit the climate
as "evidence" that the models "work" The models only "project" the
future, but never "predict" it.
The openng up to
indefinite numbers of "reviewers" is probably an attempt to turn it
into a popularity contest. Any red blooded member of Greenpeace must
surely be expected to submit a favourable review. It is rather like the
way that in this country opinion polls. or Select Committees are
deluged with printed postcards of support.
Cheers
Vincent
Gray
75 Silverstream Road
Crofton
Downs
Wellington 6004
New Zealand
Phone/Fax 064 4 9735939
"It's not the things you don't know that fool you.
It's the things you do know that aint so"
Josh Billings